5.2.1.2.
Afternoon After Christ’s Death –
The Nature and Consequences of Events Which Marked the End of this Day
5.2.1.2.1.1.
Supernatural Events
“The miraculous signs which accompanied our Lord’s death – the darkness from twelve o’clock to three, the earthquake, the rending of the temple veil … struck myriads with awe and astonishment, and perhaps smoothed the way for our Lord’s burial in Joseph’s tomb, without opposition or objection.” Ryle’s Expository Thoughts, 4, p.326d
Although we differ greatly and in almost every respect with Ryle on how these “signs” effected “our Lord’s burial”, p.327a
we would stress our agreement with him that these phenomena eventually contributed to a most important fact, the fact that Jesus was buried “without opposition or objection”. In order to have had this result, these “signs” had had to be of singular nature and of immense effect. The phenomena which accompanied Jesus’ death, seldom, if ever, receive due consideration in commentaries. No exception of greater significance though, can be found in Schilder’s Trilogy. Part Three, Christ Crucified, Chapter 16, translated by Henry Zylstra, Paideia Press
“In all Lenten literature known to me there is no work comparable
to the trilogy of Klaas Schilder.”
Luke records a darkness that lasted from noon till 3 p.m., that is, for the last three of the six hours Jesus lived in death’s agony on the cross. Three hours, in the Gospels’ record of Jesus’ crucifixion, were exactly of three hours’ duration in modern time reckoning. The Jewish light day always had twelve hours, all year round. That implied a shorter hour in middle winter than in middle summer. But Passover coincided with beginning of springtime, exactly the fourteenth and fifteenth days after the first new moon after equinox – that is, Passover coincided with the first night of full moon after equinox. “It is a night to solemnly observe”. The hours would be of equal length day and night, the days being as long as the nights. So three hours – exactly – were left of day when of a sudden the strange darkness ended. An eclipse of the sun could not have caused the darkness, because it was full moon, the learned say. Ryle, on Mark 15:33-38 describes the phenomena as “miraculous” – without explanation. If without explanation, it also would occur without warning. It would not have set in gradually. It was there like lightning strikes – just darkness, not here or there, but “over all the land”. Without explanation and without warning, it had to be without degree. It was darkness totally, perfect blackness. There was no reflected or deflected light. There were no lights lit because it was day at its brightest when the darkness fell like a smothering blanket. The knife in the hand of the priest coming down on the first paschal offering went astray in the fright of sudden darkness. Every priest was dumbfounded, blinded, terrified. (It was of the kind of darkness of the fifth Apocalyptic plague. “Now the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their sores, and repented not of their deeds.” Rv.16:10-11) The after effect this darkness caused, would not be shrugged off in short time. It lasted at least till some life returned into them and the Jews are recorded to have asked Pilate that the crucified be removed.
Then, on the “ninth hour”, just as suddenly as it came, the darkness was light again. But this was not light as of the sun. Again it was light like lightning strikes. Not dawn towards light, but blinding, painful, sudden blast of light. (“And the fourth angel poured his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.” Rv.16:9) This was the light in which man now, as he gradually moved his hands from his eyes, beheld the result of the darkness and earthquake. Man was as perplexed and as disconsolate by this light as he was by the darkness. It was no light given him to go about his business as usual. It was light that infiltrated the remotest corner of the darkness of his heart. As the priests slowly began to see, they felt the earth and heavens tremble and roar from without and from within. As the veil, that hindered light on the holiest of all and seat of mercy, was rent as by the hand of God, the golden cover shone in full splendour and public eye. Nothing more humiliating could happen to this proud priesthood.
“Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose.” Mt.27:50-52
Wenham notes, “According to The Gospel of the Nazaraeans “the lintel of the temple of wondrous size collapsed” at that time.” Easter Enigma, p.71-79,6
(“And He gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple in heaven, from the throne, saying, it is done. And there came voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.” Rv.16:16-18)
“The tearing curtain and the exposure of the Holy of Holies at the time of the earthquake which followed Jesus’ death, would have profoundly disturbed (the Jewish authorities) and reawakened their anxieties [of] an uprising by the people).” Wenham p.71/72
They sacrificed despite the rent veil and exposed ark of the covenant. And they sacrificed like they would again many years later when the Romans would destroy their temple. They sacrificed till the blood could not be contained while confusion could not be greater. They could find no time to think of the crucified.
Under these circumstances it is sure the Jewish leaders would have been “profoundly disturbed.” But exactly their disturbance would have made them forget about an uprising or about Jesus. The people also would have been upset by the calamities, and would not have worried about an uprising for which they in any case would have been too disorganised by reason of the “signs”. Tents of visitors’ attending Passover reached between white washed graves on the rocky slopes surrounding the city walls. An earthquake that “rent the rocks” and opened the graves would have caused havoc. Calamity and consternation were boundless. Damage and injury were immense. Survival must have been every one’s sole impulse.
“This gospel [of Peter] says that there was great disquiet among the people at the crucifixion of Jesus and at the “great signs” which accompanied it and that this murmuring of the people made the elders afraid.” 72b
The Gospel of Peter gives an absolutely distorted picture of Christ’s crucifixion which in every respect is unreliable. We cannot approve “that some of its independent features may represent genuine historical reflections.” It is specifically in these “independent feature” where this document looses grip on truth. However, the section Wenham here must have had in mind, 15 has no word that “the elders” were “made afraid” by the peoples’ “disquiet” and “murmuring”. It simply says, “They (the people) were disquieted and in fear that the sun may have gone down while He still lived”. In section 23 this “Gospel” even continues: “Then the Jews rejoiced and gave the body to Joseph to bury because he saw all the good things done by Him”.
